New Short Film Idea #1

I write stories. I do not write scripts or film videos. Still, film (or maybe theatre) seems like the best medium for this little idea, so short film it is.

Working Title: Roses

Genre: Romance/Mainstream

Characters: A man and his wife. They've been married for some amount of time and have a young son.

Setting: Modern-day. Everything takes place at various times in front of a kitchen counter with a vase of roses.

Plot: For Valentine's Day, the husband buys his wife a nice vase of flowers. She's delighted, and they discuss a nice steakhouse for dinner before leaving. Various other occasions where they chat here are shown, with their conversations becoming less "romantic" and more normal as time goes on and the flowers wilt a bit. Eventually we show a few small fights, and the husband storms out, leaving the wife to water the flowers and note their state wistfully. Eventually life catches up fully, and she no longer waters or notices the flowers. The fights get progressively worse, and tears are shed. The wife finally disposes of the flowers in disgust. A few days pass where the couple doesn't exchange words at all. In the kitchen by himself, the husband notices the empty vase and takes it, exiting the house. The next day, the wife enters the kitchen to find a fresh set of flowers on the counter and smiles.

Anyone interested is free to take this one. Also feel free to change the ending. I felt like it should end sort of happily, but what I came up with seems too forced. That's what I get for trying a condensed romance idea, ha.

Chasers (NFI#1) Excerpt

While in the throes of writer's block in other projects, I decided to give the first part of Chasers a try. This definitely isn't the entire first chapter, but it's the first whole section. Feedback is appreciated, as always.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

She awoke with asphalt grating her back. No warm light touched her face, and a look straight ahead to the sky confirmed the sun wasn’t out. Nor were any clouds, nor were stars. Only a vast black canvas hung above her.

Something seemed off about that.

With an exhale, she pushed herself up to a seated position. She could see well enough despite the lack of celestial bodies. Tall streetlights, which contributed no more to the lighting than the absent sun, stood on either side of a pristine street, painted lanes glowing brightly over the black asphalt. No sputtering of engines filled the air, but she felt it was a good idea to get to the sidewalk.

Managing to stand easily enough, she hurried onto the concrete and rubbed her arms. While the atmosphere wasn’t as cold as it appeared to be, her short sleeves still left her with a bit of chill.

“Oi!”

Nearly stumbling into a mailbox, she clenched her fists and glanced about her. She didn’t feel any keys or mace in her pocket, but she was sturdy enough to feel that feet and elbows would be adequate.

Finally she saw the man strolling towards her. Leaning back a bit, he smiled loosely, the tails of his fine suit flapping quietly behind him. He was well-dressed from top hat to gleaming shoe, but his windblown hair and stubbly beard ruined any impression of utter spotlessness. He raised his thick eyebrows at her grimace and wisely chose to stop while yet some distance from her.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you before,” he started with a brogue that matched his flame of hair.

She crossed her arms, no tension slipping from her frame. “Good for you.”

He chortled. “Got another nice one, looks like.” He held out a hand to shake before seeming to realize she was standing too far away to reach him. Instead he tipped his hat. “My name is Clyde. Pleased to meet you.”

Though she wasn’t planning to respond with her name, she found she couldn’t if she tried. Clyde must have seen the flicker of shock on her face, because he smiled a bit wider and said:

“Don’t have a name of your own, do you, lass?”

“I’m sure I do.” She kept her voice cold. “I just don’t seem to remember at the moment.”

“So I see.” He pulled out a pocket watch without looking at it too closely. “I don’t suppose you remember anything else about yourself?”

She took a deep breath. “What business is it of yours?”

“You’d be surprised.” Still smiling, he slipped the watch back into his pocket. “In fact, I know just how to get your memories back. If you don’t trust me, you don’t have to follow me, but the others will be gravely disappointed.”

With that, he turned on his heel and began to amble back where he had come. She watched, a tremble creeping into her shoulders. He could be trying to lead her into any number of traps. She had no phone in her pocket to dial for help, if there was help to dial. No lights shone in the windows of any bland-faced buildings, and a car had yet to putter past. She still had no idea where she was, and that also boded ill for however she could get help. No signs marked restaurants, hospitals, or general stores. The only thing yet of any comprehensibility was now striding away from her.  

Cursing under her breath, she walked after him, keeping her footsteps light in the hope he wouldn’t notice. She swore again when he glanced over his shoulder with a grin.

“Decided to come after all, then, lass?”

“Don’t call me ‘lass’,” she muttered.

Clyde turned back around, picking up his pace. “Then what shall I call you?”

“I already told you I don’t know my name.” Hunching over a bit, she jogged to catch up.

He moved to the side to give her room. “You might as well make one.”

“Why?” She exhaled noisily, watching the concrete tiles pass underfoot. “Does no one else know what my name is?”

He shrugged. “There are only four of us here, so I’d very much doubt it.”

Her pace lulled before she hurried up. “Four of what? Your gang?”

“Oh, no.” His shoulders bobbed with another chuckle. “Four people. Two of them being you and I.”

She walked without reply, observing the empty buildings and roads. They didn’t look much different from any others she had passed.

He watched her head swivel before starting, “The place goes on forever. Loops round on itself.” After a while of receiving no response, he grinned. “Have you already given up on understanding?”

She didn’t turn to look at him. “Just lead me to someone else.”

He laughed grandly. “Will do, lass. Will do.”

New Fan Fiction Idea #6

Working Title: +Anima

Fandom: +Anima/Hetalia: Axis Powers crossover

Genre Tags: Adventure/Friendship

Length: Multichapter, about as long as a novelisation of +Anima.

Protagonist: Italy as Cooro.

Other Main Characters: England/"Bushy" as Myrrha/"Husky".
Sweden as Senri.
Belgium as Nana.

Antagonist: Germany as Igneous.
Spain as Fly.

Plot: A retelling of +Anima, with the above cast (as well as substitutions for more minor characters) and whatever changes they require.

Setting: Same as the original manga.

Point of View: Third-person, omniscient.

I'm still debating the naming. I may do country names or human names, though probably not the original +Anima names.

The description is so sparse because it's quite close to the original and is really more of a casting issue. There are some differences—for example, England ends up in Astarian waters because his ship was attacked by pirates, rather than Husky being left to drown and escaping the capital through waterways. 

A Pearl Worth Writing For

Recently I've finally come to realize that (shocker) if I don't enjoy writing a story, it's really not worth the loads of time and effort I put into it.

This is an unfortunate realization for the readers of Break Out. I've really only been writing it for the readers. I had my fun in The Rules, but Break Out was the more seriously-taken sequel to explain why I was able to have my fun in The Rules. Negligible amounts of my own interest went into deciding to write the sequel. The chapter with France finding Canada wanted to be written, as did the chapter with Italy taking an unexpected turn (which was originally going to be in The Rules, anyway). That's it. I haven't plotted enough to know what happens at the point I've reached, and I've realized I don't really care anymore. I've only been writing my 2,500 words every four days for the readers' sake, and so few showed much interest the last chapter posted (until recently) that I just gave up on it.

I'm not promising I'll never go back to it. If it becomes of interest to me, or if I have a lot of extra time and pushy readers, I'm sure I'd be fine with writing some more. I already have the "normal" amount of reviews for the last chapter, so I'm not feeling quite so abandoned. It's difficult trying to balance what I want to do with what I should do for readers, but I've chatted with a good handful of friends (and my mother), and they've agreed that I just shouldn't write it if I don't want to—it's my hobby, for veal's sake. (If I do give on forever on Break Out, I'll at least post a summary of what was supposed to happen next, so no need to panic too much.)

At the same time, I hope I don't end up doing this with all of my original fictions. The Long and Winding Road is getting few enough reviews that I can be sure I'm not just writing it for the readers, and I'm not seriously thinking that I might lose interest in it. As for my other (future) fictions, at this point I don't know. I'm worried that I'll find myself losing interest in things and losing my discipline in the process. Hopefully that's just another unfounded accusation I'm making at myself, but I guess only time will tell. If nothing else, I've powered through all 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo with a fiction I was at no point proud to call my own.

What do you think? Any advice for me? Have you ever been in this sort of situation? What do you think makes writing worth it?

(Also, if the title sounds somehow familiar but you can't quite place it, here's your hint. I also mean "pearl" in the metaphorical sense, though hopefully that's not difficult to figure out.)

New Short Story Idea #2

I've had this idea for a while, but I've just never gotten around to writing it. Was reminded of it in Genetics Monday morning.

Working Title: "Apoptosis"

Genre: ...Is Suicide a genre? Maybe Horror, with a touch of Mystery.

Main Characters: Gwen, an 18-year-old female with short, orange hair that was normally well-kept. She was a freshman, preparing for a pre-medical degree of some sort. She was book-smart, but not very good with relationships.
Claire, Gwen's 20-year-old sister. She has reddish-brown hair, shoulder length, and is certainly "the pretty one" of her family. She can be a bit of a ditz, but she's willing to make friends with just about anyone, despite the toll it takes on her time.
Herman, a 29-year-old male officer. He's a bit big but in-shape. He's not an emotional man and just wants to do his job.

Setting: Gwen's bedroom, in modern-day America or something. The story format alternates between Gwen in that room, hovering over a Cell Biology textbook, and Claire and Herman standing there the next day.

Plot: A morbidly-depressed Gwen is studying for a big exam she "knows" she won't pass when she finally commits suicide, which she has been contemplating for months. She is found in dead her room the next day, and Claire and Herman investigate the scene.

Point of View: Alternates between first-person from Gwen, describing the process of apoptosis (programmed cell suicide), and third-person from Claire, who describes to Herman how Gwen had been faring as of late, in parallel with the processes Gwen describes in her sections.

After reading Seven Pieces of Chalk, I don't feel like I could do any suicide stories more justice, but I'd still like to toy with this someday. It seems like an interesting format to me.

Dream Journal #5

20 March—21 March

For some sort of dire grievance, some others and myself were to be banned from our home planet, which, as far as I can tell, was not Earth, although we were all human. We were forced into a very cartoony rocket, where we all stood in the centre, by the one round window, as we were launched. We were supposed to be condemned to die on the "spring moon"—a moon, not far from our home planet, that was labelled with an extremely large pale blue structure in the shape of two intersecting semicircles.

Before we got to the spring moon, however, we came across another celestial body in our path. It was a very small (probably about the size of the rocket) planet made of rocky, deep scarlet stone. I remembered hearing a presentation about this planet (whose name now escapes me), so I decided to take my chances with it rather than the spring moon. Without a space suit—none of us had one, it seemed—I managed to slip out of a wide hatch in the spaceship just as we came to the rocky planet.

As I grappled to keep hold of the rock, I noticed Logan*, the one who had done the presentation I remembered, sitting on top of the planet. Not wearing any special equipment, other than a somewhat casual suit and fedora, he greeted me cheerfully. I reciprocated and mentioned his report on the planet. He nodded and informed me that "the natives—yes, natives—are really nice." This was indeed the first I had heard of any natives on the planet.

While I did not see them at first, after a while of living on the planet, I finally managed to observe the natives. They were tiny (about the height of a finger), standing triceratops creatures that usually lived underground. They weren't very social and never talked to me, but I was okay with that.

Meanwhile, I was trying desperately to get an Internet connection on my laptop, but reception on the planet was terrible. There were several Wi-Fi places to which I could connect, but they didn't work correctly, and the one that I actually received properly kept sending my browser to a bright green website advertising a hotel on my home planet and insisting I sign up for a night or two.

* Logan is one of my lab partners in Chemistry and sits next to me in class. I really feel like he would be the type to energetically do some presentation on a weird, tiny planet. He also likes to sing annoying things, but luckily that didn't crop up in this dream (although I woke up with "You're So Vain" stuck in my head).

New Fiction Idea #18

Somehow inspired by seeing two flyovers on levels on top of each other. The world came before anything else.

Working Title: Wanderers

Genre: Steampunk/Mystery

Protagonist: Joey, a twenty-something man who is rather short. He dresses as well as anyone else and keeps his brown hair short, with bangs slicked back. He's rather easygoing and really a bit lazy, but he really loves people. His specialty is cobbling, but he's fit enough to help in construction crews and other ventures.

Other Main Characters: Annette, Peter's wife. She has dirty blonde hair kept under a flowery hat and is on the thin side. She's sweet but very quiet. She prefers to work with children, but she'll lend a hand in what she can.
Neal, Joey's single brother. He has curly, brown hair he keeps a bit too long for the times, but he still dresses normally. He has a passion for architecture and is a bit of a trickster.
Deborah, Annette's 18-year-old best friend since childhood. She has impeccably straight red hair kept shoulder-length, and she very much likes dresses although it's unusual for women to wear them for long periods of time. She's outgoing but a bit too susceptible to imbibing. She specialises in clothing design and hatmaking.
Kimberley, Deborah's best friend and boyfriend. He's dark-skinned and dark-haired, and he's confined to a wheelchair. He's only talkative around friends, but he doesn't have an indoor voice. He's a born tinkerer, though he also enjoys teaching.

Antagonist: Peter, a kleptomaniac who steals mostly loose clothing articles. He sees himself as the bad guy, but he's a bit too skilled at getting away with robberies. He has a bit of a drinking problem but incidentally can contribute to the operations of breweries he crosses.

Setting: A land of bridges and little else. On the ground live ranchers (and a few others), but it's exceptionally rare to get a glimpse of them. Bridges, mostly spanning from one bridge to another, cross the world and up into the sky. Various shops, hotel-like houses, schools, churches, and other amenities dot the sides and intersections of bridges, but there are no towns. Everyone walks (or otherwise moves), all of the time, getting food and contributing what they can whenever they run across the proper facility. "Settling down" and "home" are entirely unheard of.

Plot: Overall, everything is peaceful and there is little crime. Joey has finally separated from his parents and his main group of friends to marry Annette, who is now expecting. Then Peter swipes Annette's light jacket (containing some precious family heirloom) and runs. None of their group can quite catch up, and it's exceptionally difficult to track someone who doesn't want to be found.

Point of View: First person (Annette).

I really just now made up all of the characters and plot. It could change to just about anything; I just want to play with this world.